Elders, Respect and Decoration Day From my earliest years and recollections, my Mother taught me to respect and honor my elders. All elders were either “Grandmothers,” (ulisis ),“Grandfathers” (ududus), Aunts (elogis) or Uncles (edutsis). Somewhere around six years of age I think, my Grandfather and I were in his old truck headed to the Liberty Church […]

“To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be. The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer. The people they don’t recognize inside themselves anymore. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into. We so badly want the people we […]

My Mother loved Easter. I believe in her mind Easter was really the beginning of spring and being a gardener and “green thumb” this meant she was now free to start her growing season. For those of you that knew my Mother, you can attest to the fact that she could take a seemingly dead […]

Sister Mary, as I recall, was from Baltimore, and when I left the school where I did my student teaching, she gave me a “gift” she made. It was a seashell, lacquered to protect it from the elements. The shell was milky white, flecks of orange and yellow, small enough to carry in any pocket. […]

Twenty years now Where’d they go? Twenty years I don’t know Sit and I wonder sometimes Where they’ve gone And sometimes late at night When I’m bathed in the firelight The moon comes callin’ a ghostly white And I recall I Recall (Bob Seger, Like a Rock 1989)